The Boulder County Community Rights Network hopes to turn in enough petition signatures by Aug. 4 to persuade Boulder County commissioners to put home-rule charter question on this November's ballot.

That would give the County Clerk and Recorder's Office 30 days in which to verify the petition signatures, followed by a legally prescribed period in which the commissioners could act to place the question of creating a home-rule charter-drafting commission on the general-election ballot, according to Mary Smith, a founding member of the Boulder County Community Rights Network.

That organization's activists contend that a home-rule charter would give Boulder County the authority to prohibit or more strictly regulate activities that threaten the county's communities — activities such as the use of hydraulic fracturing to free up oil and gas deposits in unincorporated areas of the county.

Boulder County attorney Ben Pearlman has said that even if the backers of the proposal do collect the approximately 13,000 registered voters' signatures required to force an election on the issue, the Board of County Commissioners would still have the discretion of deciding when to schedule an election on that question.

The commissioners could put the question on a regularly scheduled election's ballot or could schedule a special election, Pearlman has said.

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Smith, however, said on Friday that if the Community Rights Network's petitions meet the necessary signature threshold by Aug. 4, "there will be no reason to delay it" beyond this fall.

If the commissioners were to decide in September to not to put the question on this fall's ballot, "they've got the people to answer to." Smith said.

The Boulder County Community Rights Network's petition gathering, which began in June, is a "100 percent volunteer" effort, Smith said. No paid petition circulators are being used.

Smith declined on Friday to say how many signatures have thus far been gathered, but she said: "We're on our way."

If the Community Rights Network falls short of the getting the required 12,396 by Aug. 4, it could continue to circulate petitions and turn them in later. But that wouldn't meet the deadlines for items to qualify for this fall's ballot.

If Boulder County voters were to support creation of a charter commission, that 21-member panel would then meet to draft a proposed charter. Once written, the charter would have to be submitted to county voters for their approval.

Smith said the Boulder County Community Rights Network's members and supporters don't believe a Boulder County District Court's Thursday ruling — which struck down a voter-approved fracking ban in the city of Longmont's home rule charter — would apply to what her organization wants written into a county charter.

That, Smith said, is because the community-rights language her organization is seeking to include in a county charter would be backed by specific state constitutional guarantees of such rights.

Boulder County commissioners and their legal staff, however, have said a home-rule charter wouldn't give the county any more power under state law and the Colorado Constitution to permanently prohibit fracking.